152 research outputs found
When âpervertsâ were religious: the Protestant sexualisation of asceticism in nineteenth-century Britain, India and Ireland
Anti-Catholic polemics from the mid-nineteenth century made frequent comparison between religious practices in Britain, Ireland and India. The supposed atrocities taking place at locations such as Lough Dearg in Country Donegal and at âJuggernautâ (Jagganath) at Puri were denounced in terms which hinted strongly at a striking combination of extreme asceticism and perverse sexual enjoyment. In the same period the word âperversionâ, which had hitherto referred to apostasy, started to develop connotations of sexual deviance. Protestant sexualised readings of Catholic and Hindu asceticism appear to have been an important site for the development of conceptions of deviant sexuality in general and masochism in particular
SPIDER: Probing the Early Universe with a Suborbital Polarimeter
We evaluate the ability of SPIDER, a balloon-borne polarimeter, to detect a
divergence-free polarization pattern ("B-modes") in the Cosmic Microwave
Background (CMB). In the inflationary scenario, the amplitude of this signal is
proportional to that of the primordial scalar perturbations through the
tensor-to-scalar ratio r. We show that the expected level of systematic error
in the SPIDER instrument is significantly below the amplitude of an interesting
cosmological signal with r=0.03. We present a scanning strategy that enables us
to minimize uncertainty in the reconstruction of the Stokes parameters used to
characterize the CMB, while accessing a relatively wide range of angular
scales. Evaluating the amplitude of the polarized Galactic emission in the
SPIDER field, we conclude that the polarized emission from interstellar dust is
as bright or brighter than the cosmological signal at all SPIDER frequencies
(90 GHz, 150 GHz, and 280 GHz), a situation similar to that found in the
"Southern Hole." We show that two ~20-day flights of the SPIDER instrument can
constrain the amplitude of the B-mode signal to r<0.03 (99% CL) even when
foreground contamination is taken into account. In the absence of foregrounds,
the same limit can be reached after one 20-day flight.Comment: 29 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables; v2: matches published version, flight
schedule updated, two typos fixed in Table 2, references and minor
clarifications added, results unchange
Nail lacquer filmsâ surface energies and in vitro water-resistance and adhesion do not predict their in vivo residence
The in vivo residence of nail lacquers (which are ideal topical drug carriers for the treatment of nail diseases) determines their frequency of application, and is thereby expected to influence patient adherence and success of treatment. Thus in vitro measurements to indicate lacquersâ in vivo residence are routinely conducted during formulation development. However the literature on in vitro-in vivo correlations is severely limited. Thus, the aim of the work discussed in this paper was to investigate correlations between in vivo residence and in vitro film resistance to water, in vitro film adhesion and surface energy of lacquer films. In vivo measurements were conducted on fingernails in six volunteers. Seven commercially available nail lacquers were tested in commonly-used measurements. Correlations between in vivo residence and in vitro water resistance and adhesion were found to be extremely poor. The surface energies of the lacquer films (which were between 33 and 39 mJ/m2) were also not predictive of in vivo residence. High density polyethylene (HDPE) sheet â whose surface energy was determined to be similar to that of the human nailplate â was found to be a suitable model for the nailplate (when investigating surface energy) and was used in a number of experiments
2022 Upgrade and Improved Low Frequency Camera Sensitivity for CMB Observation at the South Pole
Constraining the Galactic foregrounds with multi-frequency Cosmic Microwave
Background (CMB) observations is an essential step towards ultimately reaching
the sensitivity to measure primordial gravitational waves (PGWs), the sign of
inflation after the Big-Bang that would be imprinted on the CMB. The BICEP
Array telescope is a set of multi-frequency cameras designed to constrain the
energy scale of inflation through CMB B-mode searches while also controlling
the polarized galactic foregrounds. The lowest frequency BICEP Array receiver
(BA1) has been observing from the South Pole since 2020 and provides 30 GHz and
40 GHz data to characterize the Galactic synchrotron in our CMB maps. In this
paper, we present the design of the BA1 detectors and the full optical
characterization of the camera including the on-sky performance at the South
Pole. The paper also introduces the design challenges during the first
observing season including the effect of out-of-band photons on detectors
performance. It also describes the tests done to diagnose that effect and the
new upgrade to minimize these photons, as well as installing more dichroic
detectors during the 2022 deployment season to improve the BA1 sensitivity. We
finally report background noise measurements of the detectors with the goal of
having photon noise dominated detectors in both optical channels. BA1 achieves
an improvement in mapping speed compared to the previous deployment season.Comment: Proceedings of SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2022
(AS22
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: A Catalog of >4000 SunyaevâZelâdovich Galaxy Clusters
We present a catalog of 4195 optically confirmed SunyaevâZel'dovich (SZ) selected galaxy clusters detected with signal-to-noise ratio >4 in 13,211 deg2 of sky surveyed by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). Cluster candidates were selected by applying a multifrequency matched filter to 98 and 150 GHz maps constructed from ACT observations obtained from 2008 to 2018 and confirmed using deep, wide-area optical surveys. The clusters span the redshift range 0.04 1 clusters, and a total of 868 systems are new discoveries. Assuming an SZ signal versus mass-scaling relation calibrated from X-ray observations, the sample has a 90% completeness mass limit of M500c > 3.8 Ă 1014 Mâ, evaluated at z = 0.5, for clusters detected at signal-to-noise ratio >5 in maps filtered at an angular scale of 2farcm4. The survey has a large overlap with deep optical weak-lensing surveys that are being used to calibrate the SZ signal mass-scaling relation, such as the Dark Energy Survey (4566 deg2), the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (469 deg2), and the Kilo Degree Survey (825 deg2). We highlight some noteworthy objects in the sample, including potentially projected systems, clusters with strong lensing features, clusters with active central galaxies or star formation, and systems of multiple clusters that may be physically associated. The cluster catalog will be a useful resource for future cosmological analyses and studying the evolution of the intracluster medium and galaxies in massive clusters over the past 10 Gyr
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: The Two-season ACTPol Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect Selected Cluster Catalog
Large scale structure and cosmolog
Detection of B-mode polarization at degree angular scales by BICEP2
We report results from the BICEP2 experiment, a cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimeter specifically designed to search for the signal of inflationary gravitational waves in the B-mode power spectrum around ââŒ80. The telescope comprised a 26 cm aperture all-cold refracting optical system equipped with a focal plane of 512 antenna coupled transition edge sensor 150 GHz bolometers each with temperature sensitivity of â300ââÎŒKCMBâs . BICEP2 observed from the South Pole for three seasons from 2010 to 2012. A low-foreground region of sky with an effective area of 380 square deg was observed to a depth of 87 nK deg in Stokes Q and U. In this paper we describe the observations, data reduction, maps, simulations, and results. We find an excess of B-mode power over the base lensed-ÎCDM expectation in the range 305Ï. Through jackknife tests and simulations based on detailed calibration measurements we show that systematic contamination is much smaller than the observed excess. Cross correlating against WMAP 23 GHz maps we find that Galactic synchrotron makes a negligible contribution to the observed signal. We also examine a number of available models of polarized dust emission and find that at their default parameter values they predict power âŒ(5â10)Ă smaller than the observed excess signal (with no significant cross-correlation with our maps). However, these models are not sufficiently constrained by external public data to exclude the possibility of dust emission bright enough to explain the entire excess signal. Cross correlating BICEP2 against 100 GHz maps from the BICEP1 experiment, the excess signal is confirmed with 3Ï significance and its spectral index is found to be consistent with that of the CMB, disfavoring dust at 1.7Ï. The observed B-mode power spectrum is well fit by a lensed-ÎCDM+tensor theoretical model with tensor-to-scalar ratio r=0.20
+0.07
â0.05, with r=0 disfavored at 7.0Ï. Accounting for the contribution of foreground, dust will shift this value downward by an amount which will be better constrained with upcoming data sets
Decay spectroscopy at the two-proton drip line: radioactivity of the new nuclides 160Os and 156W
The radioactivity of 76160Os84 and 74156W82 that lie at the two-proton drip line have been measured in an experiment performed at the Accelerator Laboratory of the University of JyvĂ€skylĂ€. The 160Os nuclei were produced using fusion-evaporation reactions induced by a beam of 310 MeV 58Ni ions bombarding a 106Cd target. The 160Os ions were separated in flight using the recoil separator MARA and implanted into a double-sided silicon strip detector, which was used to measure their decays. The α decays of the ground state of 160Os (Eα = 7092(15) keV, t1/2 = 97â32+97 ÎŒs) and its isomeric state (Eα = 8890(10) keV, t1/2 = 41â9+15 ÎŒs) were measured, allowing the excitation energy of the isomer to be determined as 1844(18) keV. These α-decay properties and the excitation energy of the isomer are compared with systematics. The α decays were correlated with subsequent decays to investigate the ÎČ decays of the ground state of 156W, revealing that unlike its isotones, both low-lying isomers were populated in its daughter nuclide, 156Ta. An improved value for the half-life of the proton-decaying high-spin isomeric state in 73156Ta83 of 333â22+25 ms was obtained in a separate experiment using the same experimental systems with a 102Pd target. This result was employed to improve the precision of the half-life determined for 156W, which was measured as 157â34+57 ms
PHYTOSOCIOLOGY AND STRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION OF WOODY REGENERATION FROM A REFORESTATION WITH NATIVE SPECIES IN SOUTHEASTERN BRAZIL
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